Lykke Li - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sun 30 Oct 2011

Passive response suggests lesson in stagecraft required

Having transformed radically and impressively from indie pixie into purveyor of arty, bleeding-hearted Spector pop on her second album Wounded Rhymes, you hardly expected Li Lykke Zachrisson to be exchanging high-fives with the crowd all night. But then neither did you expect her to repeatedly grumble at them for not reacting enthusiastically enough. ‘The least you can do is clap,’ she remarked at one point. Perhaps she was haunted by her mysterious meltdown in a Glasgow Marks and Spencers in April, which necessitated this rearranged show?

A passive response is maybe to be expected when an artist builds a fourth wall as high as Zachrisson does, the stage cloaked in drapes, dry ice and strobe lights, her dressed all in billowing black, mining her soul throughout the likes of ‘Sadness is a Blessing’ and the tribal-sounding ‘Get Some’ over pounding music played by model handsome blokes on organs and guitars and two drum kits. An encore of ‘Unrequited Love’ revealed Zachrisson’s softer touch, then she departed some way before curfew, without alleviating the feeling that this show might have been improved by someone politely reminding her who had paid to be there and who was being paid.

Lykke Li - Get Some

Lykke Li - 'Sadness Is a Blessing' (Director Tarik Saleh)

Comments

I love her music, and honestly hadn't put too much thought into what to expect. I wasn't suprised when she came on so dramatically, but had hoped for it to be toned down eventually. I took a friend who had never heard of her, and he left half way through.

1 song for the encore is abit cheap also, I had just bought another beer